CUSTOMER
Founded in 1946 in New Freedom, Pennsylvania, Crescent Industries is an ISO 9001:2000 registered contract manufacturer and an innovative leader in the plastic injection molding and mold building industries. Crescent Industries goal was to cut down on electricity and lighting maintenance costs while maximizing light output.
CHALLENGES
The fixtures in their manufacturing and warehouse areas consisted of outdated, energy-robbing HID (High Intensity Discharge) 400-watt metal halide fixtures containing magnetic ballasts. “The disadvantages of these lights, beyond the high energy consumption, are that they do not feature instant-on capability, and light output from the lamps depreciates very quickly, which can amount to a significant loss over time,” according to Rick Hertwig, Atlantic Energy Concept’s Project Manager.
SOLUTION
Crescent Industries turned to Atlantic Energy Concepts for an energy-efficient lighting retrofit. Atlantic Energy Concepts is an energy services company specializing in meeting client’s needs by retrofitting lighting systems with technologies that consume far less energy and increase light output thereby aiding in workplace productivity and aesthetics.
400-watt metal halide HID lights were replaced in both the warehouse and manufacturing areas. Replacement fixtures employed energy-efficient 32-watt T-8 fluorescent lamps with superior electronic ballasts. The new light fixtures consisted of 8-ft. and 4-ft. configurations, both containing six, 4-ft. lamps. On the receiving docks, fluorescent fixtures employing 8-ft. lamps were replaced with fixtures employing 4-ft. lamps which eliminated many maintenance issues associated with 8-ft. lamps.
The new lighting scenario consumed 50% less energy. Additionally, the new lamps had a life of 24,000 hours, compared to the 18,000-hour lamp life previously. Longer lamp life equates to less time and money spent on maintenance costs.Further advantages to the new lighting system are the instant-on capability of the new lights, increased light output, and decreased lamp depreciation (the amount of light output that is lost over the life cycle of a lamp) from approximately 38% to a mere 5% with the new T-8 fixtures.
Since the fluorescent lighting allows instant on, occupancy sensors were deployed in the warehouse, adding to the energy efficiency through elimination of the “human factor” of remembering to turn lights off.
Crescent Industries funded the project with a Pennsylvania Small Business Grant. Impressively, the payback on the project was under 2 years… allowing the client to experience operating budget savings almost immediately.
Old lamps and ballasts that contained PCB’s were sent to an EPA-licensed recycling center for reuse and recycling. PCB ballasts were destroyed, and full documentation was presented to Crescent Industries to prevent any future liabilities.